“During the last months of the German Occupation in 1944, the young man who was to become France's most controversial contemporary philosopher and the woman who was to become its most controversial feminist met the professional criminal who was to become its most controversial playwright.”

“It teaches that war is cruel and wasteful but sometimes necessary. That a blundering victory is more to be valued than a heroic defeat. That might and right sometimes come to the same end. All these things happened on June 6, 1944.”